Overview
Customers order from restaurants listed on the Just Eat website, Just Eat sends these orders to the restaurants, the restaurant fulfils the order and uses their own resources to deliver the meal, and Just Eat pays the restaurants twice per month the total revenue from the orders through its website less a small commission that Just Eat charges the restaurant.

History
Founded by Jesper Buch in Denmark in 2001, Just Eat is an online service acting as a web based intermediary between independent takeaway food outlets and customers. Thanks to its successful move and growth in UK, Just Eat has quickly developed into one of the leading online take-away platforms in the world with 8.1m active diners and over 11,000 registered restaurants, operating in 13 countries and floated on the London Stock Exchange since 2004 with a market value of £3bn in May 2015 and 1,075 employees. It started with bootstrapped investment and was later backed by Vitruvian.

Customers
Just Eat targets individuals who are looking for a takeaway or delivery meal from a local restaurant. Customers must have access to the internet in order to place an order through Just Eat’s website.

Learn more about the Matchmaking Business Model

You identify two or more customer groups and brings them together in your marketplace.

Engagement  — Value Creation Proposition
In its matchmaking business model, Just Eat provides value to individual consumers and local restaurants. For individual consumers, Just Eat provides a convenient one-stop-shop for local take-out and delivery meal options, offering updated menus for each restaurant listed on the website and an easy payment system. Individual customers can also review and read reviews of each restaurant. Also, with customer’s online profile that he or she sets up with Just Eat, the customer does not need to give his or her address or payment information for each new order.

For restaurants, Just Eat offers access to a larger customer base, and has enabled most of the restaurants that are part of the Just Eat network to increase their sales over time and per customer.

Delivery — Value Chain
Once a customer has registered with Just Eat, they can get access to local restaurants that offer takeaway and delivery meals. Just Eat simply mediates the transaction between the restaurant and the customer – that is, the restaurant is still responsible for preparing the meal and delivering it to the customer. Just Eat develops its software in-house and uses third party web hosting services to host its website around the world.

Monetisation — Value Capture
Just Eat charges a fixed commission per order, on average around 10.3% of the value of the order from customer. They also charge a fixed sign-up fee and other service fees from restaurants including the option to rank more highly on searches within the Just Eat website and app.

 

Disclaimer — Written by Linyun Qiu and edited by James Knuckles under the direction of Prof Charles Baden-Fuller, Cass Business School. This case is designed to illustrate a business model category. It leverages public sources and is written to further management understanding, and it is not meant to suggest individuals made either correct or incorrect decisions. © 2016